-.TH IMAGEX "1" "November 2012" "imagex (wimlib) wimlib @VERSION@" "User Commands"
+.TH IMAGEX "1" "March 2013" "imagex (wimlib) wimlib @VERSION@" "User Commands"
.SH NAME
-imagex-capture, imagex-append \- Capture a WIM image from a directory tree
+imagex-capture, imagex-append \- Create or append a WIM image
.SH SYNOPSIS
\fBimagex capture\fR \fISOURCE\fR \fIWIMFILE\fR [\fIIMAGE_NAME\fR] \
creates a new WIM file containing the captured image, while the \fBimagex
append\fR command appends the captured image to an existing WIM file.
+Note: this man page primarily documents the UNIX behavior. See \fBWINDOWS
+VERSION\fR for information specific to the Windows build of wimlib.
+
A WIM image is an independent directory tree in the WIM file. A WIM file may
contain any number of separate images. However, files are stored only one time
in the entire WIM, regardless of how many images the file appears in.
\fISOURCE\fR specifies the location of the files to create the new WIM image
from. If \fISOURCE\fR is a directory, the WIM image is captured from that
-directory. If \fISOURCE\fR is a regular file or block device, it is interpreted
-as a NTFS volume from which a WIM image is to be captured.
+directory. Alternatively, if \fISOURCE\fR is a regular file or block device, it
+is interpreted as a NTFS volume from which a WIM image is to be captured. Still
+alternatively, if the \fB--source-list\fR option is given, \fISOURCE\fR is
+interpreted as a file that itself provides a list of files and directories to
+include in the new WIM image.
\fIIMAGE_NAME\fR and \fIDESCRIPTION\fR specify the name and description of the
new image. If \fIIMAGE_NAME\fR is not given, it is taken to be the same as the
directory. The WIM image will be captured from the directory tree rooted at
this directory. The directory may be on any type of filesystem.
-In this normal image capture mode, we capture the following information from the
-directory tree:
+In this mode, the following information is captured from the directory tree:
.IP \[bu] 4
The "normal" name and contents of each file and directory
.PP
-However, in the normal image capture mode, we do \fInot\fR capture the following
-information from the directory tree:
+However, in this mode, the following information is \fInot\fR captured from the
+directory tree:
.IP \[bu] 4
File permissions. The resulting WIM image will not contain any security
descriptors because the format of the security descriptors is Windows-specific,
-and they cannot contain UNIX file modes.
+and they cannot contain UNIX file modes. (Exception: see the \fB--unix-data\fR
+option.)
+
.IP \[bu]
No alternate data streams will be captured, since these do not exist on
POSIX-compliant filesystems. The resulting WIM image will not contain any
-alternate data streams.
+alternate data streams. (Exception: see the \fB--unix-data\fR option.)
.SH NTFS MODE
\fISOURCE\fR. You must specify the NTFS volume itself (and it must be
unmounted, and you must have permission to read from it).
-More specifically, in this mode, we capture the following types of information
+More specifically, in this mode, the following types of information are captured
from the NTFS volume:
.IP \[bu] 4
All names of all files, including names in the Win32 namespace, DOS namespace,
Win32+DOS namespace, and POSIX namespace. This includes hard links.
+.SH SOURCE LIST MODE
+
+Yet another capture mode is entered when the \fB--source-list\fR option is
+given. It is essentially an extension of the \fBNORMAL MODE\fR that allows
+multiple files or directories to be incorporated into a WIM image using a single
+\fBimagex capture\fR or \fBimagex append\fR command. See the documentation for
+\fB--source-list\fR below.
+
+.SH WINDOWS VERSION
+
+This section documents the differences between \fBimagex capture\fR and
+\fBimagex append\fR in the Windows builds of wimlib versus the rest of this man
+page, which is written to document UNIX build.
+
+\fBimagex capture\fR and \fBimagex append\fR do not have separate "normal" and
+"NTFS" modes on Windows. There is simply one mode, and it uses the Windows API
+to capture NTFS-specific information, including alternate data streams, reparse
+points, hard links, and file attributes. So, you essentially get the advantages
+of the "NTFS mode" documented above, but you can capture a WIM image from any
+directory, not just an entire NTFS volume. This is essentially the same
+behavior as Microsoft's ImageX.
+
+The \fB--source-list\fR option is supported on Windows, but the
+\fB--dereference\fR option is not.
+
+Except for the differences documented in this section, the Windows build of
+\fBimagex capture\fR and \fBimagex append\fR should be essentially equivalent to
+the UNIX build. However, one additional thing to note is that wimlib's Windows
+ImageX is NOT written to be command-line compatible with Microsoft's ImageX,
+although they are very similar.
+
.SH OPTIONS
.TP 6
\fB--boot\fR
needs to be done in this case.
.TP
\fB--rebuild\fR
-For \fBimagex append\fR: rebuild the entire WIM rather than appending an image
-to the end of it. Rebuilding the WIM is slower, but will save a little bit of
-space that would otherwise be left as a hole in the WIM. Also see \fBimagex
+For \fBimagex append\fR: rebuild the entire WIM rather than appending the new
+data to the end of it. Rebuilding the WIM is slower, but will save a little bit
+of space that would otherwise be left as a hole in the WIM. Also see \fBimagex
optimize\fR.
.TP
\fB--flags\fR=\fIEDITIONID\fR
.RE
.RE
+.TP
+\fB--unix-data\fR
+Store the UNIX owner, group, and mode of regular files, symbolic links, and
+directories. This is done by adding a special alternate data stream to each
+directory entry that contains this information. Please note that this flag is
+for convenience only, in case you want to use \fBimagex\fR to archive files on
+UNIX. Microsoft's software will not understand this special
+information.
+.TP
+\fB--source-list\fR
+\fBimagex capture\fR and \fBimagex append\fR, as of wimlib 1.3.0, support a new
+option to create a WIM image from multiple files or directories. When
+\fB--source-list\fR is specified, the \fISOURCE\fR argument specifies the name
+of a text file, each line of which is either 1 or 2 whitespace separated
+filenames. The first filename, the source, specifies the path to a file or
+directory to capture into the WIM image. It may be either absolute or relative
+to the current working directory. The second filename, if provided, is the
+target and specifies the path in the WIM image that this file or directory will
+be saved as. Leading and trailing slashes are ignored. "/" indicates that
+the directory is to become the root of the WIM image. If not specified, the
+target string defaults to the same as the source string.
+
+An example is as follows:
+
+.RS
+.RS
+.PP
+.nf
+# Make the WIM image from the 'winpe' directory
+winpe /
+
+# Send the 'overlay' directory to '/overlay' in the WIM image
+overlay /overlay
+
+# Overlay a separate directory directly on the root of the WIM image.
+# This is only legal if there are no conflicting files.
+/data/stuff /
+.RE
+
+Subdirectories in the WIM are created as needed. Multiple source directories
+may share the same target, which implies an overlay; however, an error is issued
+if the same file appears in different overlays to the same directory.
+
+Filenames containing whitespace may be quoted with either single quotes or
+double quotes. Quotes may not be escaped.
+
+Lines consisting only of whitespace and lines beginning with '#' preceded by
+optional whitespace are ignored.
+
+As a special case, if \fISOURCE\fR is "-", the source list is read from standard
+input rather than an external file.
+
+The NTFS capture mode cannot be used with \fB--source-list\fR, as only capturing
+a full NTFS volume is supported.
+
.SH NOTES
\fBimage append\fR does not support appending an image to a split WIM.
-The two different capture modes only specify the data that is captured and don't
+The different capture modes only specify the data that is captured and don't
specify a special WIM format. A WIM file can contain images captured using
different modes. However, all images in a WIM must have the same compression
type, and \fBimagex\fR always enforces this.
stream chunk size of 32768. The only WIMs I've seen that are different from
this are some pre-Vista WIMs that had a different version number.
+Unless \fB--rebuild\fR is specified, aborting an \fBimagex append\fR command
+mid-way through has a small chance of corrupting the WIM file. However, a
+precaution is taken against this, so it should be very unlikely. In the event
+of an aborted \fBimagex append\fR, \fBimagex optimize\fR may be run to remove
+extra data that may have been partially appended to the physical WIM file but
+not yet incorporated into the structure of the WIM.
+
+Capturing or appending an image happens in two main phases: (1) scanning the
+directory or NTFS volume to checksum all the files and determine the streams to
+be written, and (2) writing the new streams to the WIM file. Streams are not
+stored in memory after (1), since there could easily be gigabytes of data;
+instead, they are read again during step (2); however, duplicate streams in the
+image, and streams already existing in any other image in the WIM, are not read
+again. In the future, it may be possible to introduce the ability to capture an
+image with reading each file only one time, although this mode would have some
+limitations--- for example, a stream might be compressed only to be thrown away
+as a duplicate once it's been checksummed.
+
+\fISOURCE\fR may be a symbolic link to a directory rather than a directory
+itself. However, additional symbolic links in subdirectories, or in additional
+source directories not destined for the WIM image root (with
+\fB--source-list\fR), are not dereferenced unless \fB--dereference\fR is
+specified.
+
.SH EXAMPLES
Create a new WIM 'mywim.wim' from the directory 'somedir', using LZX compression and
including an integrity table:
.RE
.PP
Append an image to the WIM we just captured, but do it from a NTFS volume on the
-partition /dev/sda2, and name the image "Windows 7" and give it a description.
-You do not need to specify the compression type, because the WIM already is
-using LZX compression and this cannot be changed. You need to specify --check
-if you don't want the integrity table to be discarded.
+partition /dev/sda2 and name the image "Windows 7". You do not need to specify
+the compression type, because the WIM already is using LZX compression and this
+cannot be changed. You need to specify \fB--check\fR if you don't want the
+integrity table to be discarded.
.RS
.PP
-imagex append /dev/sda2 mywim.wim --check "Windows 7" "Warning: This operating
-system has been approved by Bill Gates"
+imagex append /dev/sda2 mywim.wim --check "Windows 7"
.RE
.PP
git://wimlib.net / wimlib / blobdiff